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By Tom OdulaAssociated Press • Friday September 14, 2012 12:24 PM

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenyan police disrupted a major terrorist attack today in its final stages of
planning, arresting two people with explosive devices and seizing a cache of weapons and
ammunition, officials said.

A manhunt has been launched for eight more suspects including would-be bombers and the
masterminds behind the planned attack, police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said.

The pair was arrested in an area of Nairobi where many Somali immigrants live, said Boniface
Mwaniki , the head of Kenya's Anti-Terrorism Police Unit. He said the men are suspected of having
links with al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked militant group in neighboring Somalia.

Police found four suicide vests rigged with hundreds of metal ball bearings, two improvised
explosive devices, also rigged with ball bearings, four AK-47 assault rifles, ammunition and 12
grenades, he said, adding that the vests are similar to that one used in attacks in Uganda on
crowds watching the soccer World Cup final on TV in July 2010, killing 76 people, Mwaniki said.

Kiraithe identified the two suspects in custody as Abdul Majid Yassin Mohammed, 26, a Kenyan
of Somalia origin, and Suleiman Abdi Aden from Somalia. The total weight of explosives used in the
vests was more than 88 pounds, which can have devastating effect and can be detonated remotely if
the suicide bomber develops cold feet before setting off the explosion, he told a news conference.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the bombings in Uganda, saying it was in retaliation for
Uganda's participation in the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Al-Shabab has vowed
to carry out terror attacks in Kenya after the country sent troops into Somalia in October to fight
the militants.

Thus far, the reprisal attacks have come in the form of grenade attacks that have killed more
than 50 people. Police have attributed them to sympathizers of al-Shabab in Kenya. Analysts have
warned that al-Shabab could be planning a large-scale attack such one using a truck bomb.